True Immortals
by Slender's Father
Summary: They saw opportunity through the wormhole. It was where they were going to strike rich. They were ready for anything on the other side ... but they didn't expect anything to follow them through the wormhole. The wormhole destabilized and exploded. Now stranded in a unfamiliar space, the Outlanders have no idea what was going to happen to them.
1. Chapter 1

**Read the Intro A/N Please**

**EVE Online - Star Wars  
**

**Star Wars will not survive the fight.**

**Anyways, welcome to a new story! This story is definitely not my usual, which are anime, manga, webtoon, manhwa, TV, and the like. This links two major sci-fi communities: EVE Online, a spaceship mmorpg, and Star Wars, a franchise that has everything from games to published books to loyalties to (toomuch).**

**Now Star Wars ... Almost everyone knows about Star Wars, or at least heard of it. It's about the conflict between good and bad, and people with light sabers and superhuman powers like telekinesis and lightning storms. I myself like the 400+ episodes of Star Wars, and I read up on more on their wiki. It has so much lore and characters! However, the improvement of technology can be a little more consistent.**

**EVE Online ... Now there is a game that makes Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG) live up to its true name. Most mmorpg's out there like WoW, Archeage, Guild Wars 2, Maplestory, Neverwinter(D&D), and other unmentioned games are games that have players log-in, hunt, Level Up, and buy/sell their items from/to NPCs and other people. You fight for whatever team, guild, or faction that you affiliate yourself with, or even only yourself.**

**But let's say you kill a dire wolf, strip its hide, and sell the raw hide to an NPC for quick cash.**

**Where does it go?**

**In most games, that ends up being a scrap data that's pretty much removed. In fact, that raw hide no longer exists as if God had smitten to oblivion.**

**So -because you din't want that to happen or other reasons- you sell to a player and that player makes something out of it... And then he makes something better later on, and he can't sell his old hide armor because of too numerous reasons that all games mentioned above have like "Soul Bound" and "Soul Bound on Equip." So he sells to NPC. Well, that's scrap data now.**

**But what if you sold the best thing the game had? A ultra rare item?**

**Well, players are going to keep them and more of such items would flow into the market... meaning that value of that item slowly goes down.**

**A market with infinite gain and zero loss.**

**That's where EVE Online is so different. NPCs don't exist in economies (Mobs don't count, as all MMORPG games need mobs. Without mobs, it's no longer a mmorpg), meaning whatever you or anyone else sells will have to be bought by someone else.**

**You want to sell scrap metal? You better hope that someone wants that scrap metal.**

**You want to buy a new ship because your last ship got reduced to dust by Amarr battleship's famous laser broadside? You better hope that someone is manufacturing them.**

**Player-only Economy. Boom.**

**Everything is about player interaction, and every decision you make literally has an impact on the community, small or large, market or warfare.**

**A good example would be what led to the Bloodbath of B-R5RB.**

_"The **Bloodbath of B-R5RB** or **Battle of B-R5RB** was a massive-scale virtual battle fought in the MMORPG space game EVE Online, and was possibly the largest player versus player battle ever. Pitting the Clusterfuck Coalition and Russian alliances (CFC/Rus) against N3 and Pandemic Legion (N3/PL), the 21 hour long conflict involved over 7,548 player characters overall and a maximum of 2,670 players in the B-R5RB system at one time. The in-game cost of the losses totalled over 11 trillion InterStellar Kredit (ISK), a theoretical real-world value of $300,000 to $330,000 USD. This theoretical value is derived from time cards which are purchasable for real currency and can be converted into a trade-able item in the game." __-Wikipedia._

**And do you know how it started? Because someone forgot to pay the bill in _in-game_.**

_"...mistakenly failed to make a scheduled payment to in-game security force CONCORD. This resulted in the star system B-R5RB losing its sovereign status, which meant that other players could capture the system without needing to wait for the normal "reinforcement timers"." -Wikipedia_

**Butterfly Effect, bitch. He forgot to pay the bill, and the world's largest PVP battle occurs less than a month later because of his actions.**

**...Now that's a game.**

**On top of that, EVE Online itself has two games -one in market and other in testing- that runs along side EVE Online. A FPS and a space fighter pilot that partakes in real battles of EVE universe.**

**Among games EVE Online holds both the quality and quantity that the most avid gamer could ask for.**

**Welcome to EVE.**

**Oh, and watch all of their trailers at Youtube, especially the Dominion Trailer. It's really really close to actual gameplay.**

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**xXx**  
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**xXx Call and We Shall Come xXx**  
**xXxXx**  
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**Disclaimer: I own nothing except OC's and plot.**

* * *

_YC 115_

_Wormhole XBQ-363463-A234WER2_

_System Name: CZ6U-1_  
_Region:Esoteria_  
_Security: 0.0_

_System Owner: Northern Associates_

Capsuleers.

Rest of the galaxy called them immortals. The undying pilots of destruction.

It was what they were. There were the few oddballs that did nothing but waste time with sightseeing, but the rest of the capsuleers raked in money for whatever they wanted.

However, as it was mentioned, there are oddballs. In the local system of CZ6U-1, there were eight such oddballs.

They were once part of Band of Brothers under a single corporation by the name of EVE Outlander. Unfortunately, Band of Brothers disbanded after losing all of its territories to their rival, Goonswarm, and others that followed to scavenge the fall of Band of Brothers.

Instead of involving themselves in another alliance, they decided to roam instead on the edge of null-sec space, where the four empires met the capsuleer held space.

So then why were these eight vagabonds here, very deep within null-sec? In possibly hostile territory?

Well...Because their fearless leader asked them to.

All eight of them were currently onboard their only capital ship flying capsuleer's ship, the Chimera (2.5 km long carrier). Christened _The Home of Outlanders_, it was the headquarter of the corporation. Also, because of its owner rather eccentric desire to grow his own food and supply food for all of his corporation members and families since some five years ago after a rather bad case of food poisoning, the carrier carried an entire farm inside it, all of it powered by ultra-sensitive solar panels littering the roof of the ship.

They sat around a metal table, as the capital's owner was a bit spartan with his decorations, sitting in metal chairs with their ships parked within the carrier.

"So this is the wormhole you talked about, eh?"

That was EVE Outlander's CEO and founder and the owner of the carrier, Gesth Freilsten, a Caldarian. Once a well-to-do pirate that roamed the edge of the null-sec for unprotected or solo flying ships, he came to establish his corporation after being hunted down for his hefty bounty. Sure, he had to lose three of his prized ships and three clone deaths in order for him to realize that pirating was no longer an option for him. He did, however, name the corporation after what he was for the sake of honoring his past, however dishonorable he was.

He was a tall man with black hair, thin eyebrows, narrowed grey eyes, a square jaw, and high cheek. His last clone death left him bald, for it happened only a week ago. He wore informal attire in most occasions, comprised of cotton dark grey hoodie, pair of dark grey linen pants, and white t-shirt; he walked around barefooted within his ship.

The woman next to him nodded. "Yes. Unfortunately, while I was waiting for you all here, I found out that the wormhole will only sustain itself for twenty hours at max from after an hour from this point," she replied. This woman was the CFO, Chief Exploration Officer, and Chief Research Officer as well as spouse of the CEO, Senna Sarum-Freilsten. As a member of the Sarum family, the current ruling family of the Amarr Empire, she was wealthy and well educated. However, she sought to make her own future by becoming a capsuleer, which closed off many of the religious paths she could have taken, and started to explore the rest of the galaxy.

Unlike her husband, she wore a more formal attire -red silk suits and pants for woman- along with low heel shoes. However, all members of the EVE Outlander were eccentric... and her eccentricity was the white hair. When she was making herself a capsuleer, she paid extra money to have her DNA changed to give her white hair. So genetically speaking, her hair, eyebrow, armpit hair, and hair everywhere else was white.

Which only made her look beautiful in her husband's eyes but very different in the eyes of others.

Doi frowned. "Ugh. That sucks."

When wormholes open up, as they have since not too long ago, they stayed open for a very long time. This enabled many capsuleers to go through these portals to a new place far away from their galaxy to exploit where they arrive at. One such event led to Sleeper Incursion a year ago, but Senna had ensured the corp that this wormhole did not have Sleepers.

Which was a good thing, those things hurt a lot. Like one Sleeper frigate fights on even ground with capsuleer handled standard cruiser and they never travel alone.

It was always good to hear that their next destination was not going to have them.

Sure, EVE Outlander had a carrier that was at ready to help them -as always- but it's better to not have trouble than have one.

There was a scoff, and a rustle from Senna's left. It was a man with a red bandanna covering his head with the infamous Guristas pirate insignia -the skull version of those famous playboy trademarks. He wore a black leather jacket with the Ishukone Corporation logo on its left shoulder, a pair of black leather pants, and a white t-shirt underneath the jacket.

This man was David Sauh. He was a honorary member of the Guristas Pirates, a pirate faction which had so much money, they didn't know what the hell to do with it. He was also EVE Outlander's first recruit outside of the married couple. He had been through the good and the bad with the corporation since its founding, and as such, had the CEO's most trust.

He also flew a rather unique ship, a Guristas-rip off of Caldari's Scorpion-hull battleship, Rattlesnake.

But unlike the Freilsten couple, he wanted to see Sleepers. While the Sleepers were dangerous, when they were dealt with, they had some very expensive technology that the corp could sell for a lot of money, and he had firepower to take on Sleeper battleships with ease!

So after hearing that there was not going to be a Sleeper hive, he was kind of put off by this exploration.

There was another man next to him, and this man was the one who scoffed.

Unlike others, he had his entire head covered with a full-face helmet of sorts. It had three red "eyes" that he used to see. He wore a similar outfit as David, which gave him a more cyborg-ish look instead of the "pirate" look that David had.

This was Q. Or more specifically, he was Q-QG2S142, a rogue drone that gained a sentience on par with humans. Unfortunately for the rogue drone, he had been on the run ever since his creation because both the humans and the rouge drones wanted him dead and gone.

EVE Outlander took him in, and helped him survive. David had been the most helpful with the Rogue AI, and this had made the drone very loyal to corp, especially to David.

And as such, he had been working for them as the corporation's Information Analyst. Even right now, with the big boys and gals of the corporation meeting, he was still analyzing the data that Senna had retrieved in her short visit across the wormhole.

"The wormhole is stable enough to have our carrier's mass go through several times, but we should do only one run of the system on the other side just for safety's sake," he said a low mechanical voice somewhat resembling David's voice. "At the same time, I'd advise against using this wormhole with the carrier as collapse of the wormhole would leave our only carrier stranded somewhere very far."

Gesth nodded. "I know that, but the resources in this system is abundant. Going back and forth multiple times to hull those minerals will only destabilize the wormhole faster. I want to just get this over with one round trip. It's not like we didn't do this kind of deal before."

Q tilted its head. "Not with a wormhole so close to its collapse. Who knows what can happen."

"Well, we're wasting our time just sitting here," Gesth said. "And this chat is useless; it's not like we didn't know the stuff presented here beforehand."

David grunted. "I'll get my Rattlesnake ready just in case," he said as he stood up as well, and left the room.

After David left, Senna turned to her husband. "You're more fickle today. Something wrong?"

The CEO of the Outlanders frowned. "... It's nothing, hon. The jitters about being here."

* * *

Their squadron of a carrier, two battleships, three exhummer-class mining barges, one assault cruiser, and two frigates hovered before the wormhole.

"Alright, you guys ready?" Gesth's voice came through the com.

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Yes, captain."

"Yes, hon."

"Ya."

"Yes."

"No, let me take a piss!"

...

"That was a joke. Of course, I'm ready."

Gesth sighed as he sat down inside his capsule. The capsule's neural network immediately connected itself to the neural sockets on the base of Gesth's neck. "Warping."

* * *

When the fleet of EVE Outlander came through, they met a stunning sight.

The wormhole had opened up next to a blue watered planet with multiple rings of ice and asteroid, which was actually their first time seeing one in a wormhole space.

Senna nodded. "I told you. Those rings there are our prize of this wormhole," she said as she targeted several of the asteroids she had marked beforehand and sent the target data to the rest of the capsuleers. "Those are the ones that we need to mine first. They have the best quality ores for morphite."

That kind of shocked few of the capsuleers.

Morphite is a highly unorthodox mineral that can only be found in the hard-to-get Mercoxit ore. It is hard to use Morphite as a basic building material, but when it is joined with existing structures it can enhance the performance and durability manifold. This astounding quality makes this the material responsible for ushering in a new age in technology breakthroughs.

However, it was also very rare, and as such, each 0.01 cubic meter of the material sold for around 6,5000 ISK. Considering that their fleet could mine out at least all of the ones marked, which was a total of seven extremely large asteroids, in the given time, Senna was sure that from this expedition alone, they will be able to make at least a billion ISK.

"Let's start mining! We don't have all day!" Gesth cheered through the comm channels.

The carrier and the mining barges boosted their thrusters to the maximum to get closer to the asteroids belts.

However, David didn't like what he was seeing.

Every single wormhole that he had gone through had not a _single _asteroid belt. Instead of asteroid belts, they had gravesites of dead civilization ... like the Sleepers, and there was _always _a hostile forces.

What unnerved the pirate of the Outlander was the fact that he was seeing _absolutely nothing _on his scanners. Normally, that was a good sign, but that was in a familiar space.

This felt too much like a trap.

Ping ping ping ping ping ping

ping ping ping ping

ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping

ping ping ping!

Speak of the Devil...

Hostiles. Dozens of them, and more incoming.

Every single one of them jumping through the very wormhole the Outlanders had come through.

Every single one of them rogue drones.

"Motherfucking cocksuckers from Gallente! This is a Rogue Drone trap!" he shouted through the command channel as he burned his afterburner to quickly catch up with the once-giddy mining group. He launched all of his own combat drones. Warp towards the planet! We're gonna get massacred if we stay here!"

Already, there were a hundre rogue drones of all sizes and shapes quick to target them.

The carrier and the mining barges were quick to respond, jumping through as fast as possible. Then frigates, cruisers, and the battleships jumped through.

* * *

Senna bit her lips.

Rogue Drones.

Once, they were Gallente Federation's attempt to create drones that could think and fight without needing direct command from a ship's captain. However, the experiment, as things do, went wrong, and the first thing the rogue drones did once they gained "septience" was to destroy the base that they were made in.

Immediately, Gallente Federation set out to exterminate their problem. However, the drones were quick and smart. They made their homes in deadspace pockets, where it was harder for the Gallente Federation Navy to search for them, and began to replicate their numbers.

They now expanded to each tips of the entire New Eden galaxy.

'To think that they could setup such elaborate traps. How did they even manage to camp out at the wormhole?'

For capsuleers, it would have been simple: cloaking, the act of turning invisible to the sensors and the naked eye.

But rogue drones never used cloaking. It was a fact. They "preferred" numbers to tactics. To see such a tactic left her mind boggled.

What were they going to do?

Gesth was furious as well. He knew that something was wrong. It was too good to be true. A wormhole this good so far in null-sec space with an asteroid belt containing the best of the materials a miner could hope for?

It was a fucking trap, and he led his entire corporation right into it!

He banged his fist down inside his neural embryonic fluid filled capsule.

And they had also realized two things.

One, this was another galaxy, not one of those weird wormhole spaces that most wormholes lead to. That meant that should they die, then they will have to be transferred to the clone bay installed in their carrier, not the stations they set their cloning beforehand.

Second, the mass of the rogue drones that had come through were starting to destabilize the wormhole. They could see it in their sensors.

Their way back was closing, and fast.

"David," he called out to his old friend. "Is it possible for us to break through?"

* * *

"David, is it possible for us to break through?"

David scoffed within his own neural embryonic fluid filled capsule.

Break through that blockade? Already, the number of rogue drones were reaching five hundred. And more were coming through. Fight that with measly number of ships?

"No. We're screwed. Too many of them."

Then there was a blare.

Every single capsuleers' scanners were going nuts over what was happening with the wormhole.

[WARNING! Wormhole is destablizing too fast! Expected: An explosion. Radius: 1 AU]

They all blinked.

They were within the radius.

Gesth hissed. "Warp towards the star! Warp towards the star!"

* * *

The rogue drones came through the wormhole, already having completed the task that they had been there for: to determine whether or not the wormhole was stable without losing one of their own, as the region they were in had only small amounts of them.

It was stable, and it was confirmed when the human capsuleers moved their small squadron through it.

They followed through, intending on using the wormhole was a gateway to new resources.

They came and met a new world.

And only saw resources.

However, their own sensors picked up that their the wormhole was destabilizing fast.

But it was too late.

The wormhole sucked up the space in front of it, and exploded.


	2. Chapter 2

_Now, I know that Star Wars has more armament per capital ships -anything above dreadnaughts and carriers- and EVE Online lacks them. So to compensate for their lack of number, I am giving the EVE Online's armaments more firepower: one medium sized hyrid turret would be equivalent to two turbolasers (2x), but EVE Online's rocket missile launchers would only be one to four in ratio per missile (4x). Small hybrid turret would be equal to one turbolaser, but large is equal to four. SW Concussion is = EVE heavy missile. So ... a scorpion, the base of the Rattlesnake, has four turret hardpoints and four launchers, and with my conversion, that would be the same as forty turbolasers and 16 launchers loaded with cruise missile. _

_Yeah._

_Enjoy._

* * *

_?_

_System: ?_  
_Region: ?_  
_Security: ?_

_Sovereignty: ?_

Gesth stared at the flat holoscreen that held no information about the system they were in. He floated quietly within his neuroembroyonic fluid filled pod in the heart of the carrier, _the Home of the Outlanders_.

It was crazy.

He had learned last "night," approximately seven hours ago for the planet not too far away from them, the entire capsuleer population of the EVE Outlander have learned that their neural implants as well as their ship had designated their carrier,_ the Home of the Outlanders_, as the sole point of revival point.

Meaning the clone bay.

Meaning, even if they were to suicide in their pods by self-destruct, they will not go back to New Eden.

They could really die.

For the first time in a long time, all of the capsuleers were very scared of taking fatal risks. Sure, the clone bay within _the Home of the Outlanders_ had at least the ability to manufacture more clones and make the necessary implants as it had the blueprints for them, meaning they weren't going to die. But it made them cautious.

But where were they, truly? It was definitely not New Eden, and his ship could not find New Eden; not even the general direction. The system they were in seemed to be uninhabited, but at the same time, they were traces of spacefarering race who stopped by this place -not the rouge drone parts.

As a leader, he was distressed.

His wife, on the other hand, not so much...

* * *

Senna was thrilled. This was an adventure unlike anything they had ever thrown themselves into. Exploration, ratting, and pirating were all good, but they got boring after a while, and Senna personally didn't like the latter two, as they killed people, capsuleer or not. But even exploration could only do so much for her adventurous soul when the wormholes she explored were too similar to each other.

But this ...

This was new.

This was different.

Her mind sparkles inside and out thinking about all of the possibilities and the exoticness she will come across, and with their carrier here, she knew that they will be safe to revive as long as the carrier survives.

Anyways, she had work to set up and start handing out.

* * *

David was ... bored.

While he was freaked out like the rest of the capsuleers of the EVE Outlanders, he was pretty chill with this entire incident. He was familiar with death already -having died many times when other capsuleers or pirates blew his pod to smithereens- and he always woke up. Truth be told, David has been bored since his first death. There were no true risks anymore ... and that took away the exhilaration that came with the risks.

So he had been bored, but their current situation made it worse by not providing action. Even mining operations required that he patrol around the asteroid/ice belt or the entire planet to keep the fighting away from the miners.

However, because they were unfamiliar with the world around them -not even the tiniest bit!- Gesth had decided that all ships were to remain at close contact, meaning within a kilometer of each other.

Normally, David would give a laugh and a middle finger while telling the CEO that he was too whipped -because this was most likely Senna's directive- and just doing whatever he wanted. But this time, he conceded to the "carebearing" because even he was slightly ... perturbed about their situation and wanted to reduce the amount of internal conflict.

_Ping ping ping_

David sat up abruptly within his capsule, swishing the fluid around him violently.

That was his ship's scanner system warning him about inbound spaceships.

He quickly opened up a channel to all of the capsuleers.

"We got inbound! Seven frigater-class of unknown origin and affiliation! Davross, you better not sleep off this time. Keep those rocket launchers open!" David commanded.

There was a collective affirmatives and one grumble through the encrypted, corp member-only comm channel.

* * *

The "frigate-class" spaceships heading towards the squadron of the EVE Outlander and detected by David's advanced scanners were actually Consular-class cruisers.

Now, from the perspective of the New Eden capsuleers, the size of the Consular-class cruisers were of their counterpart's frigates, which was roughly 100 meters long.

These seven ships were also of the Republic Navy stationed on Gjivona, the second planet of the Gjivona system of the Dantus sector, which resides in the Outer Rim Territories.

Less than four ago, their scanners had detected a large explosion near one of their uninhabitable moons, and had come to investigate it. Investigate they did -from more than a 100,000 kilometers away with their scanners and radars- and they found that there was a small squadron of ships.

They were, however, wary of approaching the ships in question for a single fact: they had a battlecruiser-sized capital ship with them, and that scared them a lot.

All battlecruisers -those exceding the length of 1.5 kilometers- had massive amount of armanents, ranging from half a thousand turbolasers to two thousand. This, of course, does not count the missile launchers and fighters they can hold.

"...What do we do, Major?" one of the ships' captain asked of their leader.

"We meet them, what else?" the major replied with a growl. "Move slowly towards them. Don't spook them too much. Warp to within 100 kilometers of them."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

"They're warping towards us."

Just as David spoke through the channel, all of the capsuleers got their own signatures on the incoming spaceships.

One in particular was using his ship's advanced sensors to analyze the incoming ships.

_[Analyzing... Unknowns approaching in squadron formation... Common V-formation. _  
_[Assumption: Civilization here is roughly similar to one back "home."_  
_[Unknowns have turrets, but too low a number for ships of such size. _  
_[Question: Are the turrets they possess strong enough for each ship? _  
_[Question: What kind of turret are they? _  
_[Unknowns lack any drone bay. Assumption: The turrets present on the Unknowns are the only armaments.]_

Q, who had been analyzing, stopped analysis as the squadron of unknowns came within 200 kilometers of their own squadron and stopped around 150 kilometers.

_[Unknowns stopped at warp distance. _  
_[Unknowns are not taking hostile actions.]_

"They're attempting comm," David spoke through the comm. "You want to take the call, Gesth?"

Gesth grunted. "Yeah. Let's see whoever these guys are... I just hope they aren't pirates."

* * *

Onboard _The Intercepter_, Major Jafero Rorena gulped.

It was indeed what the squadrons have suspected. The unknown squadron only 150 kilometers away from them had a battlecruiser with them. But the shape of the battlecruiser -the general shape that their scanners could pick up- was ... odd. The shape was closer to that of a freighter or a luxury cruise ship, as most battleships did not have a elongated shape like a stick of metal.

But then again, with how eccentric the galaxy is, Major Rorena was sure that this ship was closer to a freighter than a battlecruiser, which he told his squadrons' other captains to reassure them, which it did.

He ordered his communications officer to open a channel with the unknown squadron.

It took a minute before the communication channel was set and stable between the two squads. Rorena cleared his throat and spoke up so that the mics in the bridge. A holoscreen opened up showing a flat screen with the face of the one he was talking to.

'A human, huh?' the Rorena thought and thought about how to go about this. The major debated quickly between the authority of an official of the Republic Navy and that of this system's Patrol Chief, and decided quickly as well on the first. "This is Major Rorena of the Republic Navy. I am here to investigate the explosion that occurred around this position approximately an hour ago. Identify yourselves, you intention here, and your relation with the explosion," the major spoke with authority.

{...What the hell are you?}

Someone in the background of the Major's command crew facepalmed.

Rorena frowned. "I am a S'kytri."

* * *

The rest of the capsuleers blinked when they saw the green-skinned and reptilian winged humanoid.

"Holy shit! It's a different species!"

* * *

Apparently, the channel was open to all of the capsuleers, as the earlier phrase blasted inside _The Intercepter_'s bridge.

"Excuse me for being a different species," Rorena growled, not liking how these humans were reacting to him.

{Please, we mean no offense.}

Gesth's face changed on the flat holoscreen changed to that of his wife with a flicker. {My name is Senna, CFO of the EVE Outlander, and that is who we are. And again, please excuse David for his lack of ... subtly. We come from a place where only humans exist.}

Rorena blinked.

There were few places where only humans existed; no large settlement had only one species present. {It sounds like a lie.}

Senna just chuckled. {We are explorers, mainly jumping through wormholes to find any kind of ancient wreckage, mineral resources, and information. It is a common job from where we come from,} she said. {Unfortunately, the last wormhole that we came through had a little complication when too much passed through within a short amount of time. It collapsed upon itself. We only survived by warping towards the planet behind you a few seconds before the wormhole exploded.

{Pushing that aside, though, why don't we have a information exchange?}

"Sounds like a dangerous job, but I agree on the information exchange," he replied. 'It's not like we're giving secrets away.' It seemed reasonable enough. Her explanation told him what he needed to know about the explosion... but some of the details were sketchy and unbelievable. Wormhole exploration? The galaxy hasn't seen such a method of travel since the development of hyperdrive.

Senna chuckled again. {Compared to piracy, factional warfare between thousands of battleships, dradnaughts, supercarriers, and titans, the four empires breathing down our neck, and heavily competitive industries in empire spaces, wormhole exploration is by far the easiest of those.}

"Sounds like some kind of hell in my opinion," he muttered, and that was what he truly thought. Four empires? That would mean a lot of warfare, and he knew his galaxy's history on warfare. Whenever a new faction rose up, or an old order restored, politically, factionally, or economically, there was always violence that resulted in the death of one or more factions involved. All if the fighting itself was too much for either parties to handle. "And how big were these empires?"

{The smallest of the four, the Caldari State, controls an approximate 100 systems. Now, you said the republic, but what is the Republic?}

It was easy-going information trade from Senna's perspective. These Republic Navy ships seemed genuine about their identity, and giving information like this was more beneficial to her and the corp than these soldiers.

The major, on the other hand, broke into sweats. While these people may not have been soldiers of their "empires," it was only logics that dictated that those who survived between such monsters were monsters themselves.

"Well, the Galactic Republic is the republic that has been around for tens of thousands of years. It encompasses the center of this galaxy and expands out towards the 'galactic east.' Most of galactic west is considered 'Unknown Region' where we don't know much about it nor do we have them mapped."

Their talks continued on for another hour between the two.

* * *

By the end of the talk, the Republic Navy's squadron and its leader, Major Rorena, had come to realize that these people were not dangers to them or their charges. If anything, these people needed help in finding a new home. That, however, was not their job, nor did they have time. They were to move on to the next planet on their patrol route.

They said their farewells and good luck's before departing.

It left the EVE Outlander's corp members by themselves with much to think about.

The first to speak was Q, as it was expected.

"There are no capsuleers in this galaxy."

It was a realization of their own powers. In a universe where immortality does not yet exist nor do they have the technology for it, the capsuleers of the EVE Outlander were gods among men.

"It seems that ..." Gesth began. "We have much we can do, but we are without a goal."

"Indeed," David muttered right behind his leader's point. "This place is so large that whatever we do won't affect the overall scheme of things in the scale it did back home. Hundreds of thousands of habitable systems, and tens of such number more! It was startling. So much that they could do without a care. Hell, they could even build an empire that no one outside of it was aware of, but such is not their goal.

Probably.

"We need to build a base," Q stated.

Gesth looked at the rogue drone through the visual comm channels. Q was a rogue drone that had been on the run from the Gallente Federation. Unlike the other rogue drones that replicated themselves like living organisms, Q had gained individuality as a result of one of the experiments. This led to Q's reluctance in participating with the other rogue drones as it would be "like mingling in with zebras as a mustang" as Q himself put it. That and the other rogue drones would not tolerate him; he refused to elaborate on this.

Also, Q is EVE Outlander's Information Analyst as well as the only non-capsuleer of the corp. Whatever he said was taken under recommendation.

"Why?" the CEO of the corporation asked.

But it was always safe to ask why.

Q was silent for few seconds before he spoke. "First off, _Home of the Outlanders_ cannot be a permanent clone factory and bay; it is too easy to blow it up compared to a station. As such, building a base will allow us to remove the clone factory and bay. This also frees up our carrier for other purposes such as mining, combat, and patrol.

"Second, with a base, we can make factories to replace parts or all of our ships as needed. I have many blueprints with me, and in time, I can copy and research more prototypes for our ships."

Senna raised an eyebrow. "Why not use the ships of this galaxy?"

Q was quick to answer with a tone that was almost ... condescending. "The ships we just saw on our screen are inferior to ours in every way. Their turrets may fire faster but their damage has less than half of the firepower of our medium-sized tech 1 hybrid turrets, and that's disregarding the ammunition themselves. Their hulls are also structurally weak because of what they are made up of. If I have a factory, I could make a navy worth ten times its size. Also, their shields are horrible. While I know that shield designs are different because of our differences and where we came from, the energy input into the shield generators and their output are horrible. To get the same shield layers and health for the amount of energy we use, they would use quadruple our energy. Their armor strength is similar to ours, but they lack of regenerative abilities of our armor and nanotechnology."

"And how do you know this?"

"I scanned and hacked their ship while the talk was underway. On that point, their security against our advanced virus programs are abysmal. I'll have to gather more data later to find out further in detail as I highly doubt these ships that this navy sent were their best."

Gesth nodded to Q. "I guess then we have a goal to work on team. As suggested by Q, we will build a base. But first, we must find the materials and the location. As the generous leader that I am-" Senna glared. "-I am willing to put up the location on vote."

* * *

"Is it wise to let them go?" the communications officer onboard_ The Intercepter_ asked of his captain.

Major Rorena nodded. "I had our scanners running while we were talking. We couldn't get a definitive data on their ships, but I know for a fact that one of their smaller frigates alone could take on all of our squadron. Had I decided to push the authority and have them called in for questioning, then they were sure to react violently to that; I didn't ask their place's history for jackshit. The scanners also indicated that the explosion was not something from a device or a ship explosion as most of the aftermath energy dispersion -as far as our scanners were concerned- were of gamma radiation and light. Had it been a ship explosion, the result of the scan would have been alpha particles on a low level, a lot of heat, and metal, none of which were found."

The communication officer nodded. "Damn, captain. You're so smart!"

Rorena shrugged. "Let's just get to our next outpost, but remind me to file a report on this as soon as we refuel."

"Aye, sir."

* * *

For the Outlanders, they came to a decision regarding their base.

They were going to build a space station in orbit around a planet or a moon of their choosing. The discussion then drifted to which planet they were going to build their base around. Q wanted to build the base around a lava planet, where mineral resources are plentiful, and they won't have to worry about materials. This was to also prevent leak of their technology to others in this galaxy.

Senna and David wanted to build a base on a agricultural world. Their reasoning was that by building a base there and building factories to make goods to trade with the populace, they can slowly build up finance to work with later on.

Gesth wanted to build a base in orbit of a planet with asteroid rings just like the one they were currently looking at. His reason? Convenience; there was one such planet right in front of them.

This left the other four unnamed members of the Outlanders to vote on the suggestions.

The two miners voted for lava planet as it made their job easier on the long run and even on the short run. The combatant excluding David voted for the agricultural world.

Gesth's recommendation was out; it wasn't a serious recommendation in the first place, anyway.

So Gesth and the last unnamed member's vote came to decide on the lava planet or the agricultural world.

It took them an hour, but they both decided to vote for the lava planet.

And to the surprise of many, there was a lava planet right in that system.

Gjivona-III, the third planet from Gjivona Star and only 0.05 AU away from Gjivona II, the populated star, at its closest orbit.

* * *

Q's Data Entry on Project: Lava Womb

Day 1  
-Moved squad to orbit of Gjivona-III.  
-Calculated Gjivona-III to have 1.6 standard years, a total of 578 days, and have a 27.3 standard hour day cycle.  
-Evidences of land outposts, but all are in ruins.  
-Evidences of orbital structure, but all are in ruins.  
-Evidences of Gjivona-III to have been a life-flourishing world until a few centuries ago. Cause of this is unknown.

Day 2  
-Miners found thin asteroid belts on the other side of the planet from where the corporation set the squad to orbit from. The asteroid belt is rich in iron, thorium, and copper. This is good material as thorium will be used for the reactors.  
-Asteroid belt excavation has started.  
-The Home of Outlanders' fighter and drone bays have been refitted to be temporary factory to produce the necessary components to make the orbital factory. Estimated time before orbital factory's finished construction: 4 Gjivona-III days.

Day 7  
-Major Rorena dropped by. He was surprised to see that we had already a orbital factory and few turrets. The shipyard had just finished when he came by. He was very surprised with how fast a mining drone was made within our shipyard. I told him that it was subpar. He was quiet shocked after hearing that.

* * *

It was the start of the tenth day that problems began to pop up.

First problem was the lack of contact outside of their own group. Sure, their base was coming up, but they also needed to eat; capsuleers don't live on ISK and bullets contrary to the myth. They needed food, and what food they have were slowly running out.

Second problem was the lack of manpower. While capsuleers of the Outlanders were resourceful bunch thanks to their connectivity to their ship -which rid capsuleers of the need to man their ships- and the power to process large quantities of information thanks to their implants, one individual could only do so much. Eight individuals were nothing to hundreds individuals. As of the moment, they were a small enough operation, so it was good, but some of their members began to express desire for ... conquest in a world that was very inferior to them. Conquest is all good and that, but without an army and a navy, they couldn't.

But that was beside the point: most of the Outlanders had nothing in mind for conquest -they were more concerned about food and janitors.

The third and last problem was the Republic itself. Or rather, the Jedi's.

On the tenth day, a small "cruiser" of their had arrived within a fifty kilometer radius of their newly operational base. This had alerted everyone, and David and his combatants had locked, scrambled, and webbed the interlopers within ten seconds. Sufficed to say, those aboard were bewildered and scared when communications came up.

They claimed themselves as Jedi, the ones who watch over the Republic since the beginning as guide, protector, and mentor. Those aboard stated that they came to this place seeking the source of the "disturbance in the Force."

David kindly told them that warping so close to a base in a warship like the cruiser of theirs constituted an act of aggression from where they came from.

The Jedi profusely apologized.

However, one of the Jedi aboard pushed his own representative aside, and began to accuse the Outlanders of evil deeds.

David only in turn told the old-looking man that it was none of his business, and he would shoot their ship into oblivion if he continued.

The Jedi didn't shut up.

David board their ship and shot that Jedi in the leg.


End file.
